Curious Leadership with Dominic Monkhouse
Monkhouse & Company
Recent Episodes
Some industries are easy to disrupt. Infrastructure isn’t one of them. But by focusing on adoption over features, clarity over complexity, and tempo over comfort, Shelley Copsey has built FYLD into a company reshaping how frontline operations work.
In this episode, she breaks down the real levers of transformation: making work visible, removing friction, earning trust in high-risk environments, and rebuilding leadership as the company scales. Her insights go far beyond infrastructure - they’re a blueprint for any CEO trying to grow a company inside a resistant or complex market.
What you’ll learn:
🔍 The root causes of productivity breakdowns in scaling organisations
🎯 How to build products teams genuinely adopt and rely on
⚠️ Common failure points in organisational transformation — and how to overcome them
⚡ Practical strategies for maintaining operational tempo as your company grows
🧩 How to evolve leadership roles to match the organisation’s next stage
🛰️ Why organisational visibility unlocks high-quality, high-speed decisions
Who should listen:
- Founder–CEOs and execs scaling teams, product, and operations
- Leaders driving change in complex or fast-growing organisations
- Investors and operators focused on AI-enabled execution and productivity
Book recommendations:
Any Human Heart - William Boyd
Four Thousand Weeks - Oliver Burkeman
About the Guest:
Shelley Copsey is the co-founder and CEO of FYLD, an AI-powered fieldwork platform transforming operations for major infrastructure and utilities companies. She leads the company’s rapid scale-up across multiple regions, helping organisations deliver safer, more efficient, data-driven fieldwork.
With 25+ years across infrastructure, emerging tech, and organisational transformation, Shelley has founded, grown, and led multiple enterprise SaaS ventures. Her experience includes building GeoSLAM into a global geospatial leader (acquired by Faro), serving on the founding board of Coviu through its pandemic hypergrowth, and contributing to several CSIRO spinouts, including Emesent and PaidRight.
A Chartered Accountant with senior roles at CSIRO’s Data61, PwC, and KPMG, she has completed executive education at MIT and Stanford focused on AI and innovation. Her work has been recognised by EY Entrepreneur of the Year, Sifted 100, Tech Nation Future Fifty, and Startups.co.uk’s Hottest UK AI Companies.
Shelley is known for her leadership in AI adoption, scaling SaaS in complex industries, and delivering technology with real operational impact.
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Chapters:
00:02:04 - AI, Skill Shortages, and Industry Fallacies
00:04:25 - Worker Productivity and Motivation
00:06:34 - Shelley’s Move to the UK and Founding Story
00:08:24 - FYLD’s Growth Journey and Market Traction
00:09:25 - AI’s Societal Impact and Future of Work
00:11:45 - How FYLD’s Technology Works
00:13:55 - ROI: Productivity vs. Safety
00:15:28 - Adoption vs. Innovation in Construction
00:17:35 - Productivity Decline and Safety Regulations
00:20:22 - Scaling and CEO Time Management
00:22:08 - Leadership Team Evolution
00:23:58 - Board Composition and Support
00:28:05 - Systems and Scaling: CRM and Sales Process
00:31:30 - Go-to-Market Strategy and Enterprise Sales
00:33:58 - Hiring A-Players and Culture Fit
00:36:29 - Handling Toxic Hires and Fast Exits
00:36:52 - Book Recommendations
00:39:45 - Maintaining Culture During Growth
00:41:05 - Founder’s Role in Induction and Culture
00:42:17 - Work-Life Balance and Passion
Most enterprise AI projects crash long before take-off. Hype, bad data, cultural resistance, and “enterprise chaos” stop even the biggest organisations from getting value.
In this episode, Dominic speaks with Steve Salvin, founder & CEO of Aiimi, a data and AI company helping large organisations connect the messy, disconnected worlds of data, content, conversations, and operational history - and finally extract the insights buried inside.
Steve explains why most companies are still on “the first rung of the ladder,” why linking LLMs to enterprise data often backfires, and why the real breakthroughs come from agentic systems doing work humans can’t (or won’t). He also breaks down how to drive adoption inside your own teams, build a culture that celebrates experimentation and failure, and reinvent your leadership style as your company scales.
If you want to replace AI hype with genuine enterprise value - start here.
What you’ll learn:
💡 Why most organisations' data is too messy for GenAI to be useful
💡 The real difference between adaptive intelligence and token-prediction tools
💡 Why culture, not technology, derails adoption
💡 Power tools, champions, and performance management
💡 When to stop doing the work and start running the business
💡 The questions that reveal whether a candidate will raise the bar
Who should listen:
Founder-CEOs scaling from 30–150 people, CTOs/COOs trying to make AI stick, data/AI leaders, transformation teams, and operators frustrated that their organisation is “doing AI” without getting any value from it.
Book recommendations:
Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway - Susan Jeffers
Fierce Conversations - Susan Scott
Hope Is Not A Strategy - Rick Page
About the Guest:
Steve Salvin is the founder and CEO of Aiimi, a leading British AI company which he has bootstrapped since its launch in 2013. Their tech helps teams find, make sense of and retain control over their data, and is used by various FTSE100 companies as well as the likes of the FCA, PwC, and the UK government. Having worked in tech since the 80s, Steve is a serial entrepreneur and is passionate about building AI that empowers users and gives them more control.
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Follow Dominic on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicmonkhouse
Chapters
00:01:44 - Aiimi's Founding Vision
00:02:52 - Disconnected Corporate Data
00:04:07 - Unlocking Value from Corporate Conversations
00:06:20 - AI Hype vs. Reality in Enterprises
00:08:45 - AI: Then and Now
00:11:36 - Practical AI Use Cases in Enterprises
00:13:35 - Extracting Knowledge from Calls and Messages
00:15:24 - AI’s Impact on Jobs and Productivity
00:17:25 - AI Adoption: Leadership & Cultural Change
00:20:01 - Engineering Teams & AI Power Tools
00:23:09 - Curiosity as a Leadership Requirement
00:24:34 - Celebrating Failure
00:27:26 - Agile, Experimentation, and Failing Fast
00:28:09 - Steve’s CEO Evolution & Leadership Lessons
00:32:02 - Book Recommendations
Can optimism really scale a company?
In this episode, Dominic chats to Dan Williams, CEO of Orean Personal Care, to explore what it really takes to lead through chaos - from doubling revenue in tough markets to leading with vulnerability, optimism, and Ironman-level discipline.
Under Dan’s leadership, Orean has grown from £3M to £30M turnover, becoming one of the UK’s fastest-growing contract manufacturers in the beauty industry — all while achieving B Corp certification and building a culture rooted in learning and care.
What you’ll learn:
💪 How training for an Ironman reshaped Dan’s mindset as a CEO
💡 The power of optimism when leading through adversity
❤️ Why vulnerability builds trust faster than authority ever could
🏭 How Orean scaled without losing its culture or values
📈 What it takes to grow sustainably - from £3M to £30M
If you’re a founder or CEO navigating the messy middle of growth — trying to scale your team, your systems, and your mindset — this is a masterclass in how to stay human while building something extraordinary.
Book recommendations:
The Obstacle is the Way - Ryan Holiday
Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor E Frankl
About the guest:
Dan Williams is the CEO of Orean Personal Care, a UK-based contract manufacturer producing premium skincare, haircare, and wellness products for some of the world’s most innovative beauty brands.
Under his leadership, Orean has grown tenfold in revenue and achieved B Corp certification, balancing profit with purpose.
A lifelong endurance athlete, Dan brings his Ironman mindset into business — combining optimism, resilience, and relentless learning to build a company culture defined by progress, not perfection.
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Follow Dominic on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicmonkhouse
Chapters:
00:01:00 - Dan Williams: Background and Personal Life
00:01:32 - Business Growth Journey
00:03:39 - The Importance of Optimism
00:04:53 - Vulnerability as a Strength in Leadership
00:06:44 - Challenges of Turnarounds and Maintaining Energy
00:08:24 - The Role of Sports in Personal Development
00:10:42 - Achieving Goals Through Determination
00:12:05 - The Impact of Belief and Support
00:13:22 - Leadership and Management Styles
00:16:03 - Promoting from Within vs. Hiring Externally
00:18:05 - Succession Planning and Employee Development
00:21:06 - Overview of Orean's Business Model
00:23:34 - Curiosity and Understanding Customer Needs
00:27:14 - Establishing a Five-Year Vision
00:30:02 - Building a Strategy for Growth
00:32:29 - Evolving Leadership Team Dynamics
00:33:09 - Time Management and Work-Life Balance
35:00.00 - Navigating Challenges in Leadership
37:19.00 - Balancing Passion and Time Management as a CEO
42:13.00 - Finding Balance Between Passion and Life
43:19.00 - Effective Hiring Strategies and Lessons Learned
45:23.00 - Mastering the Art of Interviewing
49:02.00 - Book Recommendations
AI hype is everywhere - but most of it is just noise. This episode cuts through it.
Dominic digs into what real artificial intelligence actually looks like with Daniel Hulme, Chief AI Officer at WPP and founder of Satalia and Conscium.
They explore why most so-called “AI projects” are really just automation in disguise, how to spot where genuine adaptive intelligence can unlock value, and what’s coming next - from synthetic audiences that test creative before launch, to the race toward conscious machines.
What you’ll learn:
- Why most “AI” isn’t intelligent - and how to tell the difference
- Where companies are misinvesting in generative tools
- How WPP uses AI to transform creativity and decision-making
- Why adaptive systems (not shiny models) are the real future of business
- How Daniel thinks about consciousness, empathy, and what humanity looks like in an AI-powered world
Book recommendations:
Genesis - Craig Mundie & Eric Schmidt
About the Guest:
Dr. Daniel Hulme is one of the UK’s leading voices in applied AI, ethics, and technology.
He’s Chief AI Officer at WPP, where he leads strategy and deployment of AI across 100,000 people, and Founder & CEO of Satalia, the AI company he started from his PhD and later sold to WPP for a reported $100 million.
Daniel recently co-founded Conscium, an AI safety company that tests and verifies AI agents - and is exploring whether machines could soon become conscious.
He holds a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from UCL, where he’s also Entrepreneur in Residence, and was named by AI Magazine as one of the Top 10 Chief AI Officers globally.
Who should listen:
CMOs/CEOs/COOs, data/AI leaders, product & strategy teams, and founders deciding where to place AI bets (and what not to build in-house).
Sign up to receive our weekly Curious Leadership newsletter: https://subscribe.monkhouseandcompany.com
Follow Dominic on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicmonkhouse